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Chapter 9

Translation

Grasping and yet full of, not in harmony with oneself;
Surmising and yet of keen spirit, cannot long protect.
Treasures fill a room, none can keep;
Wealth and pride, one’s gift to one’s blame.
Meritorious deeds that satisfy oneself recede;
This is the way of nature.

Third Pass: Chapter of the Month4/23/2017

Corrections?

None this time

Reflections:

Grasping and yet full of, not in harmony with oneself hints at the result of our ideals getting ahead of reality. Reality is the full of, and the grasping is setting our sights on ideals and expectations. This happens when we don’t appreciate what we have, and that is completely natural. Appreciation is NOT innate. Just think, if appreciation was an evolved trait — an instinct — we would appreciate what we have TOO MUCH, and have less incentive to get out there and hunt and gather as nature intends us to do.

One might say that we no longer need to hunt and gathers; we can get what we want at the store. Ha! Our biology doesn’t know that. We are biologically hunt and gatherers and will always be unless evolution changes that. When I think about the chances of that, I come up with a big fat zero. All life hunts and gathers in some way for survival. Hunting and gathering are a good definition for life itself!

In the civilized circumstances in which we find ourselves, our hunt and gathering instinct merely plays out in other ways. Specifically here, grasping after idealistic expectations is just a surrogate for the hunt and gather instinct. We chase our dreams, yet dreams have no grounding; this makes not in harmony with oneself all too easy to occur. (See The Tradeoff for background)

The last line of chapter 70 resonates with the next two lines of this chapter: Treasures fill a room, none can keep; Wealth and pride, one’s gift to one’s blame. Valuing and seeking wealth and pride are sophisticated forms of hunting and gathering. The difference lies in the ‘prey’. The disconnection we feel drives an urge to ‘be somebody’. This expectation turns us into becoming our own ‘prey’.

Deep social connection instills a genuine sense of ‘I am somebody’ security. The hierarchical nature of civilization makes that kind of intimate organic egalitarian connection virtually impossible; especially at the depth our ancestors experienced pre agriculture. The treasures, wealth, and pride are simply substitutes. These don’t truly work, they only promise to in our expectations — our dreams. Once achieved, we are left as empty and alone as ever. That is why Wealth and pride, [are] one’s gift to one’s blame. We can’t help but end this futile race with some sense of guilt and self-blame. Self-blame because we chased our expectations ‘down the rabbit hole’.

Meritorious deeds that satisfy oneself recede. What are meritorious deeds? Doesn’t all this come back to the hierarchical urge ‘to be somebody’? In life, the niche we seek and achieve in whatever hierarchy can never be secure. This is the way of nature. This is why civilization’s hierarchical nature always leaves us feeling isolated. Chapter 39 seems to hint at this… This, and so rulers call themselves solitary, scant, pathetic.

Interestingly and importantly, D.C. Lau’s translation puts the cart before the horse, so to speak, while the more literal less so, if at all. The difference lies between D.C. Lau’s “and so is” and the literal’s “for”. “And so it” points the arrow of causation forward, i.e., “… does not drag, and so[as a result] …”. Conversely, “for” points an arrow of effect backward, i.e., “… not attack himself, for [because]…”.

The literal invites a symptoms point of view. Here, a lack of feeling merit drives one to brag, or attack himself (or others). A lack of feeling deeply connected and secure creates a void that drives us to grasp and fill up with wealth, merit, pride, treasures, righteousness, and so on. Note: treasures are not only material things, like gold, but frankly anything one values: friends, reputations, knowledge, status, etc. We treasure anything that promises to fill the void within, even though we know the promises are empty. As we say, “Money doesn’t buy happiness” or as the first lines of chapter 70 say, Our words are very easy to know, very easy to do. Under heaven none can know, none can do.

Second Pass: Work in Progress1/26/2013

Issues:

There are a few punctuation changes this week. I like to call them improvements. I also trimmed superfluous words from line 3. Somehow using more words is easier than using fewer words. Probably, I want to cover all the bases—silly me. The Taoist in me knows it is better to cover one and let space take care of the rest.

Commentary:

Today this chapter had me reflecting on the overall message of the Tao Te Ching. It is mostly a cautionary tale about how life is, as I see it, and not how life should be, or what I should do. The more I understand the underlying dynamics, the more wisely I am able to act. This is obvious isn’t it? The hitch lies in my depth of understanding, or more precisely, in my having the will and courage (1) to take it seriously enough.

Overall, instinct drives living creatures (including us) to act and survive successfully, and as D.C. Lau put it, fill it to the brim and hammer it to a point. In the wild, nature pushes back on this drive, which helps maintain overall balance. Thanks to our superior intelligence, we have devised ways to bypass this natural governance—from stone axes to computers and beyond. We have freed ourselves from many limitations nature employs to counter-balance ‘blind’ response to need and fear (desire and worry in us). In the process we’ve helped destabilized our very existence. You could say we’ve intoxicated ourselves with our own success. Now, how is that for irony, especially if our survival success ends in our early extinction? (i.e., Not knowing the constant, rash actions lead to ominous results.)

The Taoist worldview gives voice to these underlying natural dynamics. Understanding these helps me be more minutely subtle, open and deep beyond knowledge—naturally. The more aware I am of the way of nature, the less likely I get intoxicated and shoot myself in the foot. I don’t need anyone telling me what or what not to do. All I need to know are the stakes and the process, and nature takes care of the rest (regardless of my wants or worries). As least, that is how it looks to me. You’ll have to test this hypothesis out yourself!

Christ echoes Treasures fill a room, none can keep when he says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Wealth and pride, one’s gift to one’s blame is a particularly striking way to put this. It is a poetic way to describe the interconnected, difficult and easy become one another nature of it all. While Christ’s teachings do resonate with me; the Tao Te Ching says so much more with so fewer words. Of course, I’m sure it would be different if I had need of a personal savior.

Suggested Revision:

Grasping and yet full of, not in harmony with oneself;
Surmising and yet of keen spirit, cannot long protect.
Treasures fill a room, none can keep;
Wealth and pride, one’s gift to one’s blame.
Meritorious deeds that satisfy oneself recede;
This is the way of nature.

(1) Having will and courage is actually an emotional issue, like visceral knowing. In fact, I’d say they are two aspects of the same thing. Once you give up the notion of free will, it becomes clear that the courage to carry out—to will—what is essential come naturally once you know it is essential. All our hesitation and second-guessing in life comes from not really knowing what is essential. We have divided needs, desires, worries and fears, which makes life very confusing at times. We yearn for certainty, and as a result, hastily cling to dead ends… The great way is easy, yet people prefer by-paths, as D.C. Lau put it.

First Pass: Chapter of the Week12/20/2008

Why do we feel the need to hold surplus, maintain a fighting spirit (vigor), keep treasures to fill a room, and chalk up meritorious deeds? All these fit a common m.o. (modus operandi) – an unremitting quest for perfection. Why? It is as though we are driven to fill an essentially bottomless pit; a void we don’t feel is bottomless. On the other hand, when we feel the full emptiness of the ‘perfect’ moment there is nothing left to do or get, and no where to go. We are content; the ‘task is accomplished‘.

So, holding on (and the rest) appears to be symptomatic of what we currently feel missing. Many are the ways to fill this personal void: food, sex, work, rest, friends, enemies, music, silence, art, collecting, sports, travel. Rather than saying, ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop’, we should say ’empty hands are the devil’s workshop’. The deeper the emptiness feels, the stronger the drive to fill it. Ironically, the more that emptiness is integrated in our life, the less driven to fill it we feel. I suppose you could say, you become the emptiness. To paraphrase Tat Tvam Asi (That Thou Art), ‘I am the void; the void is I’.

Personally, it helps knowing that this process is natural and no part needs fixing. It is the way of nature. Also, it helps knowing that all the myriad creatures in the world are in this ‘ordeal of life’ together. Whoopee, it’s the party of life and everything is invited! Like any party, it has its high points and low ones. As I realize that, ‘better to have stopped in time‘ seems to become easier. Although, I’m not really sure it has anything to do with realization. After all, the same preference for stillness occurs in all animals as they age.